Bringing Work Home: How Occupational Sex Composition Influences Traditional Gender Roles

• In Event: 450 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 13. Occupational Segregation

Abstract

We explore the relationship between occupational sex composition and traditional gender ideology by using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth. Previous studies indicate two possible theories to describe how occupational context would affect gender opinions. First, gender deviance neutralization theory suggests that men and women in gender-atypical occupations would hold more traditional gender beliefs as a form of gender compensation. Second, gender conventionality theory suggests individuals in gender-atypical occupations would be more likely to break from tradition gender opinions and have greater egalitarian perceptions. We find that men and women do not compensate for gender-atypical career settings by adopting traditional gender opinions. The results indicate that men with egalitarian opinions are more likely to select into gender-atypical occupations, thus confirming the salience of gender conventionality theory for men. Occupational context has no effect for women respondents which supports previous findings that gender norms for women are more robust to external influences than for men. The implications for the findings are also addressed.

Authors

• Christopher Quiroz, University of Notre Dame

• Elizabeth Aura McClintock, University of Notre Dame